GREECE PELOPONNESE MESSINIA NICHORIA

Nichoria (or: Karpophora) is an unorganized archaeological site with free entrance. It lies north of Petalidi on the junction of the highways Rizomilos-Koroni and Kalamata-Pylos. The hill which is covered with olive trees and fig trees towers over the village of Rizomilos, but in spite of its accessibility it was only in 1958 that William A. McDonald discovered prehistoric potsherds on the hilltop.

There was a settlement already from the Middle to the Late Bronze age, when it cultivated olive and terebinth for export. During the Mycenaean period it reached its greatest extent (ca. 5 hectares in Late Helladic IIIA:2), and was then subordinate to Pylos. At this time, the palace at Ano Englianos administered a kingdom that included much of Messinia, North to the Neda river, Southeast to somewhere on the Mani coast south of Kalamata (ancient Pherai). Nichoria was then a major outpost of the "Trans-Aigolaia" province.

At the end of the Late Helladic III B period, i.e. in the late 13th century BC, Nichoria appears under the name of TI-MI-TO A-KO on ten Linear-B tablets of the palace at Pylos. There are various versions on how to transliterate TI-MI-TO A-KO. The most intriguing one takes TI-MI-TO as "tirminthos", for the terebinth tree (pistacia terebinthus) which served as sources for scented resin, while A-KO could mean "agkos" for "hillside".

Nichoria was destroyed in the same event which claimed the main palace at Pylos. But unlike Pylos, Nichoria continues to exist in Protogeometric years (1120-900 BC). It was then a small settlement with single-storeyed houses - rectangular, oval, or apsidal. In a slightly larger but still plain and simple building lived the ruling family. The material remains do not speak of much wealth, stock breeding and hunting was the main occupation.

The University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition (MME) under William A. McDonald surveyed the area in the 1960s, and in 1969-1975 excavated Nichoria which proved to be a significant settlement of the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Beginning of the 1970s was the time when archaeological research began to focus on more ordinary ancient remains, particularly domestic assemblages, rather than on Mycenaean palaces and other monumental architecture.